By Buffalo City Reporter
5 October 2006

MUNICIPAL councillors should be given enough management time to execute adequately their duties as the representatives of the communities they serve, says Alderman John Badenhorst.

Badenhorst, who heads up the City's integrated development planning and performance management portfolio, was speaking at the annual conference of the Institute of Municipal Finance Officers (Imfo) in Ekurhuleni, Gauteng, on Tuesday, 3 October.

Officials responsible for finances in various municipalities around the country attended the congress.

The institute is a professional body that deals with municipal finances and provides the framework for municipal finance officers "to collectively enhance and maintain professionalism in the filed of municipal finance".

Badenhorst, Imfo's vice-president, said much was demanded of councillors, who had to merge political and administrative duties. This was difficult to accomplish.

"One cannot wield political power on one side and on the other administrative power. There is bound to be conflict of interests and councillors are not leaders on their own; they have to be effective people in executing their duties."

Councillors should be more involved in formulating budgets because they were close to communities.

In Buffalo City, 30 integrated development plan hearings were heard in each financial year and the community played a huge role in shaping the budget, Badenhorst said.

A crucial area that had to be tackled creatively was housing.

Rather than simply providing "the invariable and confined RDP [Reconstruction and Development Programme] houses", what was needed was "to look at a variety of houses and copy what cities like Singapore are doing, like building high-rise flats", Badenhorst suggested.

In Buffalo City, for example, RDP houses had been modified and sewerage systems had been included in the houses, doing away with the "unsightly" outside toilets, Badenhorst explained.

Councillors should also look into inner city rejuvenation to woo people back into these areas. Rejuvenating inner cities, he added, would ease the burden of poor people, who had to travel long distances from their homes to their places of work. In addition, it would take the pressure off the transport system.

Turning to the establishment of the Regional Electricity Distributors (REDs), Badenhorst expressed concern that these would be state-owned entities that would have a negative impact on the finance base of municipalities.

One delegate asked how councillors could perform better and fulfill their roles. Badenhorst said councillors should undergo intensive training, something that municipalities should seriously explore.

At the end of his presentation, Badenhorst had one last piece of advice. "Only you can make the difference and nothing will change unless you believe you can do it. Our country is going to survive through municipalities, by creating vibrant communities and making communities know what it is to grow."